25 



I. PLAN FOR THE GROUNDS.* 



Let the model farm (including the central garden) comprise, if practicable, 

 exactly one hundred acres, (or, if desired, one hundred and forty, with wood- 

 land,) and be of a regular shape. Let a rectangle, fifty rods from east to west, 

 by thirty-two rods north and south, be laid out centrally in that farm. That 

 space, comprising ten acres, is designed for the model garden and the college 

 buildings. The size accustoms the eye to those areas. Let the remainder of the 

 ground, ninety acres, be divided into nine fields, some of symmetrical and geo- 

 metrical forms, others of irregular shape, but all comprising exactly ten acres. 

 These fields will serve for practice in land surveying, and will facilitate the 

 adoption of a proper rotation of crops, beginning, perhaps, somewhat thus: 

 The garden being No. 1, we may put grass to be cut (say timothy or red-top) 

 in No. 2, on the northwest; blue-grass, north of the garden, for a drill-ground, 

 or for professors' houses, in No. 3 ; clover, for the first year, in the northeast, 

 making No. 4; wheat may be in No. 5 ; barley, rye, or oats in No. 6; corn in 

 No. 7; flax, hemp, cotton, or tobacco in No. , a root crop in No. 9. An orchard, 

 No. 10, with osage hedges, in labyrinthian form if preferred, may, by being placed 

 on the west, besides subserving the purposes of instruction in their cultivation, 

 somewhat serve also to shelter the buildings from cold westerly winds. 



The corn, another year, might follow the root crop, the wheat the clover, and 

 the meadow be broken up occasionally, and another laid down. Sometimes the 

 rye might be pastured, sometimes cut for grain to mix with breadstuffs, using 

 the straw for thatching hay-stacks; or sometimes, if the field seems to lack or- 

 ganic nourishment, the rye, when of sufficient height, may be ploughed in as a 

 green manure. 



II. THE MODEL GARDEN. 



If this is fifty rods by thirty-two, or eight hundred and twenty-five feet by 

 five hundred and twenty-eight, making exactly ten acres, the fences should be 

 so constructed as to educate the eye ; if worm fences, two panels should make 

 exactly one rod ; if post and rail, or plank, the posts should be exactly one rod, 

 or eight feet three inches, apart from centre to centre. At forty rods from either 

 end of the long side might be a post higher than the others, to catch the eye 

 and practice it in estimating distances ; so of one hundred yards, one hundred 

 feet, fifty feet, &c. For a similar reason, two pieces of ground may be laid off, 

 so as to show the difference between two acres square and two square acres, or 

 two rods square and two square rods or poles. 



The students, aided by the mathematical professors, might lay off the above 

 parallelogram of ground as a geographical garden, on a plan which I first 

 recommended in a communication to the May number of the Tennessee Farmer 

 and Gardener, Nashville, 1 856, afterwards reprinted in my appendix to "Key 

 to the Geology of the Globe," published early in 1858. By laying the garden 

 off" on the plan of Mercator's Projection, and making the prime meridian pass 

 through Behring's straits, the buildings can occupy the central vacancy in the 

 Pacific ocean, while each seed sown, and shrub or bulb plant, may be made to 

 grow on such representative spot in the garden as it occupied in its native soil. 

 It is almost needless to mention that in this garden should be cultivated all the 

 useful and ornamental flowers and fruits. 



The prime meridian may be made also to pass exactly through the centre of 

 the observatory on the top ; and the long twenty-four-inch wall, to be hereafter 



* To facilitate the understanding of these and subjoined details, a few ground-plans would 

 have very much aided ; but perhaps the verbal description may suffice for comparison with 

 other plans and communications as they come in, until more minute working details are 

 required. 



